Letting Her Go

I stare at the sky as I gulp down the steamy tea down my throat. I wonder why the clouds cut loose the itty bitty transparent beads. I wonder what makes them let go of someone they’re truly in love with.

I walk towards the kitchen to keep my tea-mug in the sink. I look at the dregs and then at my wife, whom I married seven months ago.

I watch her pallu kissing her forehead, sipping the sweat, and licking her eyes while savouring the taste of her tears that stink with the smell of pain. I lend my ears to the music of her bangles that seem to sing the melodies of her broken heart. I see her struggling to take the salt kept at the topmost part of shelf. I take few steps ahead, and get that canister for her.

She looks back at me, steals away her eyes from mine, leaves the kitchen, walks back to our room and stations herself at the same sofa she has been sleeping on, for the past few months.

I walk up to her, hold her hand, and haul her towards our drawing room.

“We can’t live together, dad.”

“What happened all of a sudden beta?” mom pops up in a befuddled state.

“I can’t… I can’t live with her,” I say as the lump races down my throat.

“But isn’t she the girl you love, Aryan?”

“No dad,” I say as I look back at my wife, who’s gazing at me in utter astonishment. Inside her eyes I see the whirlpool of questions and on her face, a big question mark.

“Shut up Aryan. Stop acting like a kid. You think marriage is a game? What are you talking about?”

“Maa, divorce papers are already ready. We’re no way living together. I don’t wish to talk more about this.”

I walk away from the room without quenching their thirst of questions.

I now know why the raindrops and the clouds never stay together. Maybe because they know, that the happiness of the tiny bubbles doesn’t lie amidst the asphyxiating breath of sky, but amidst the tranquil music of the leaves and the soil.

And, true love is about making the other one happy, and not caging them . Maybe this is the only reason why the branches of tree let go of the leaves, the sun always makes way for the rays to escape and the flowers often bid goodbye to its petals.

Naina, my wife, comes towards me and before she says something, I keep my finger on her lips. For the first time in seven months, my touch made her smile.